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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Imagine parking yourself at the bar in one of Nashville's beaucoup music venues, expecting to listen to a house band — and suddenly Kid Rock shows up onstage. Or Alison Krauss. Or Hank Williams Jr. It's not that rare an occurrence in Nashville, where some of music's top stars frequently perform unannounced. Last month, for example, Kid Rock played the Ryman Auditorium as part of his CARE charity tour. On short notice, he was invited to be part of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge's 51st birthday celebration. Tootsie's is one of several venues where big names often mingle and perform. Part of this is because, well, this is Music City...

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Imagine parking yourself at the bar in one of Nashville's beaucoup music venues, expecting to listen to a house band — and suddenly Kid Rock shows up onstage. Or Alison Krauss. Or Hank Williams Jr.
It's not that rare an occurrence in...

Congratulations! You're famous. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other websites have catapulted all of us into the limelight of our own social networking universe. But this "fame" comes at a high price. While you don't have to worry about...

Lollapalooza, according to “Rushmore” star and former Phantom Planet drummer Jason Schwartzman, is a little like the 1986 animated film “Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation.He can explain. Sort of.“The bands stay in one hotel and hang out in the...

You love at least one album. It is a perfect album that makes your toe tap and your heart sing (your head, too). How can something sound so right from beginning to end? So made just for you? In that melding of melody and verve is an album you feel,...

Rock star money buys stuff. Homes, planes, influence. For Kirk Hammett, the longtime guitarist of Metallica, rock star money also bought the horror-movie childhood he never quite had. Around the mid-1980s, as the band started to make a name for itself,...

When visiting my neighborhood record store in recent years, I've breezed past the front of the shop — and most of the compact disc-browsing shoppers — to get where I wanted to be: the rows of vinyl in the back.
Whether it was the warm perfection of...

When I started working out, I had a personal music player the size of a dachshund for exercise motivation. I filled it with Rush and Joe Satriani mix tapes to enhance my workouts. Technology has come a long way since then.
Now I use an iPod Shuffle,...

A nation of predominantly couch-bound television watchers got some bad news tonight, as President Barack Obama accepted his party's nomination and delivered the following line: "America's not about what can be done for us, it's about what can be done...

Justin Howard's award-winning performance of a guitar that isn't almost wasn't.When the Chicago man known onstage as "Nordic Thunder" failed to repeat as U.S. air guitar champion in Denver this summer, it cost him an automatic berth in last...

It's ice time in Chicago, with people scraping it off their windshields, cheering the Blackhawks as they skate on it and finding new ways to avoid having their cars slide on it. Northwest suburban Wauconda recently made news by saying it was considering...

** (out of four)First, let’s acknowledge something nice: Bradley Cooper is very good in “The Place Beyond the Pines,” even better than the Oscar-nominated actor was in “Silver Linings Playbook.”Unfortunately, director/co-writer Derek Cianfrance (“Blue...

After doing constant press for her new movie, “The Art of Getting By,” Emma Roberts is “over” questions about her aunt, Julia Roberts. That’s a bummer, since I was so looking forward to asking what tooth-brushing secrets Aunt Julia passed along to help...

Forty years after the initial muscle car wars, names like Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Challenger and Ford Mustang continue to duel. Each contender has its own prize stallion, with the 470-horsepower Challenger SRT8 topping the Dodge lineup and Ford storing...

Michael DavisBassist for rock band MC5
Michael Davis, 68, the bassist of influential late 1960s rock band MC5, died Friday of liver failure at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, Calif., said his wife, Angela Davis.
The Motor City Five,...

It was typically quiet on my visit last week to Cocoa Village, a quaint district of antiques shops and eateries in Brevard County, but expect the place to be more rowdy next month — at least briefly.
On Feb. 9, the area tucked between State Road 520...

One in a series of occasional articles
The Troubadour, awash on a recent night in indigo light and chiming guitars, doesn't look all that different than it did in the 1970s, when music history plugged in to the club's stage amps and earned the tiny...